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12/12/00
What do Your Customers Want for Christmas?
by Jennifer J. Trewitt
It’s too bad adults don’t write letters to Santa. It’s hard enough deciding on gifts for people we know well, but what does a company give its online clients for Christmas? The debate has raged for several years now, and everyone has an opinion. Mine is very simple:
They want the same things that all customers have always wanted: Products, Politeness, and Production.
This breakdown works for every shopping experience. At the grocery store, you want the groceries to be there, especially the advertised sale items. You want the check-out clerk to be polite to you, even if you need price checks and argue about the scanner. And you want to get in and out as fast as you can.
When buying clothes, you want to find the women’s sweaters relatively close to the dresses, not tucked away behind housewares. You want salespeople available if needed, but not breathing down your neck. You want the prices to be clearly marked, and you definitely don’t want to have to wander through shoes and jewelry before you finally find someone behind a cash register in make-up.
The online customer is no different.
They want you to have your product, and have it available. If you sell items online, this means have your promised product line and have it in stock. If you have an informational site, this means update it regularly and make it clear on the home page that there is new information. This can be accomplished as simply as adding “Happy Holidays” to your site – anyone who visits it can see it’s fresh.
They want you to be polite. Have contact information clearly available on the site, and treat every email that comes in as though it were a phone call – which means respond promptly, even if it seems that the client didn’t expect a response. Also, address the topic or topics in the email – form email responses to anything but purchases make a client feel unimportant (Did you ever get a phone call from a recording that asked you to please wait for a person? I always hang up on them, because if they really want to contact me, I’m important enough for a real live person to actually make the call.).
And finally, they want production. They want your site to be simple to navigate, and they want to find what they’re looking for as quickly as possible. If this means online sales, make your categories clear and be sure your search function works. Make your shopping cart and shipping information fast and easy to understand. If it means information on the site, make your navigation clear and don’t “bury” items under lots of pages a visitor has to click through. And if it’s a sign-up form, make it simple and easy to fill out.
There is another “P” which seems to be much more important to online customers – Privacy. Have a clearly stated privacy policy, and follow it strictly.
So give your clients the gifts of Products, Politeness, Production, and Privacy. If your site offers these to it’s visitors, they will become clients, and your clients will be happy with your holiday offerings.
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